The Deepest Well
by Saucie
Summary: An alternate universe fic, told from the point of view of Minerva McGonagall, reflecting Lily and Sirius's relationship after the fall of Voldemort.


THE DEEPEST WELL.  
  
I sit where so many have sat before me, and I see what no one ever thought they would see. I see a long room, strewn with melted, broken candles, and four wooden tables, with the marks of burns down the middle. At least, that was what I saw in the beginning of this year.  
  
It is different now. The candles that once hung in the air, enchanted, have been gathered and disposed of. In their place, oil lamps are placed along the tables. They give out a cheery light, but it only brings sadness to me. The burns have been painted over with paint cleverly enchanted to look like wood, but I can still see them. And the ceiling . . . ah, the ceiling. It is made of dark wood, carved with protective runes. I never thought I would look up while I sat in this room and see something apart from the sky.  
  
Children sit at the tables, as they did five years ago. But these children are different. These are children of war. Their faces are closed, calm, and there is wisdom in their eyes that I never thought I would see in thirteen- year-olds. And truly, none are older than thirteen. We have lost almost six years of good witches and wizards, for those past their third year cannot be taught four years' work in a single year.  
  
It upsets me, but the broken, desolate room upset me more. For now, these children will inhabit it, and it is their faces I will see five years from now, and it is better to see some faces than emptiness, and the memory of laughter.  
  
The door opens, and a man walks in. That, too, pains me. Eight years ago, this man - little more than a boy - sat at the table on the right, and there was nothing in his face but laughter. It is the memory of that laughter that haunts me. That memory, and his face now. He is twenty-five, I think, but he can easily pass for forty. His face is sunken; his eyes - once grey - deep, cold, and black. There are scars on the inside of his wrists - scars I know so well. They are marks of suicide. Proof of the desperation he must have felt.  
  
But the marks are fading now. I wonder whether he is thankful that he was not successful. He is so unreadable, now. Eight years ago I taught him, and I knew exactly what he thought, whenever he thought it. And now . . . Well, he is just one more I have lost to the darkness.  
  
Darkness, did I say? No, that is not right, for he has not gone over to the Dark Lord. But it was the darkness that made him what he is now - cold, quiet, uncaring and unfeeling. Five years in that darkness . . . I do not blame him for having no sympathy for anyone, anymore. Especially when she could have saved him.  
  
She walks in now, head held as high as it always was, but no arrogance in her glance or face. There never was any arrogance - just the knowledge that she was better than all the rest. It wasn't conceit - it was the truth. But that knowledge, that confidence, is shattered. Because she left him to rot. Her husband's best friend, her child's godfather . . . and she had left him to rot.  
  
She did what was easy, and she never did that. When the Dark Lord destroyed her life - her husband, her son - she had run. Run from the memories, and the pain, and her life itself. I did not have the time to find her, to go after her . . . There were millions more dying, and I could not tell her how selfish she was being. Perhaps if I had, he would have been saved. But there I go again. Our world is not built on perhapses. It is built on what is, and what was. Not what might have been.  
  
And the irony of it was that it was he who went after her, once the world believed he was innocent, once the true traitor was unearthed. It was he who searched the continent for her, and found her, and brought her back with him . . . and she is sorry. I know she is. But he does not believe her. Can he not see it in her eyes? Her bottomless, fathomless eyes . . .  
  
She seats herself opposite him, her eyes fixed on her plate. He eats casually, looking at nothing, and his eyes are cold and flat. Her eyes are bright, filled with sadness, and longing, and they have a depth that his do not. They are like a well - however deep you go, you will always find something. But in him . . . well, Azkaban has killed whatever emotions he had. That, and his conviction that she did not care enough to tell the world the truth, that he was innocent.  
  
I watch them, and I sigh. They are all that remains of the old world. The final fight destroyed the castle, and all in it - all who had massed for the final battle. I was the only survivor. He survived because he was in Azkaban, and she survived because she was far away in some nameless asylum. A few wizarding families were left . . . it is their children who sit here today.  
  
But as I watch these two, I feel hope for the first time in years. I know that he loved her, once upon a time, and she had - he thought - killed his love when she ran without freeing him from that prison. But love is not that shallow. It is unconditional, and very soon, he was about to realise that.  
  
I look once more at her bottomless green eyes. The deepest well has no bottom. In the deepest well, you will always find water, however far you may have to go. And in her, he will always find love, however far he has to go before he realises it. And that - that will be his redemption.  
  
It is foolish of me to think about these two when I have a whole world depending on me. But that is a new world. And I - I belong to the old world, and so do they. And I will do my best to preserve what I can of the old world I belonged to, and not let it succumb to the darkness.  
  
For the last time, as if to assure myself that my hope was not without foundation, I look into her eyes.  
  
The deepest well.  
  
His redemption.  
  
The greatest magic of them all.  
  
~^~^~^~^~^~^~  
  
A/N. Well, all I can say is that I never really liked James Potter (too - noble?) and the idea of alternate universes always appealed to me. Um, I know it can get a little confusing (little???) and so all I want to tell you guys is that James and Harry were killed, Lily disappeared, Sirius went to Azkaban, Pettigrew survived. We knew the last part, didn't we? Voldemort laid siege to Hogwarts, and Dumbledore - and almost everybody apart from Professor McGonagall - was killed, but so was Voldemort. Five years later, Pettigrew was found, and Sirius was let out. I suppose you can piece together the rest.  
  
Disclaimer: I seem to own this universe, if not J. K. Rowling's. Nah, just kidding - all the characters belong to her, and I'm just experimenting to see what could have happened to them if what did happen didn't. Did that make sense to you? 


End file.
